Food Post: My Pako Salad! Finally!

I learned about Pako reading one of my favorite blog site. I was intrigued by how the blogger described how it tasted. The picture of her dish looks yummy too. I wanted to try it but i really don't know where I can get my hands on this green stuff. Failed finding it even in the vegetable stalls in Quiapo market of even at the groceries at the shopping malls. But tonight I found them in Alabang! "Hinanap kita kung saan-saan, andyan ka lang pala sa tabi-tabi" Naks parang pag ibig... GULAY lang naman! Hahahahah!!!

After searching the net for recipes, I came up with my version!

Amai's Paco Salad

Ingredients:

• Paco Leaves ( One bundle is P10)
• Onions
• Tomato
• Salted Egg (Itlog na Pula)
• Vinegar and Fish Sauce

Blanched Paco leaves and remove from the ice bath. Drain it and remove excess water and set aside. Slice the the tomato, salted egg and onions thinly then add to the Paco leaves. Throw in few teaspoon of fish sauce, vinegar and add in pepper!

My Verdict: Hmmmm... So-so... I'm not crazy about it but its salad and I'm on a diet! So its good enough... Or maybe hindi lang ganun kasarap yung version ko! Hahahaha!  ^_________^

Sunday gone too soon

Spent the whole (almost) Sunday sleeping. I woke up 12:00pm, had lunch, watched cartoons, felt sleepy again, slept and woke up 6:00pm.. Well rested ey! Hahahaha!

Relaxed and energized, I did my obligations as a wife to my dear hubby! I actually bought broccoli and asparagus from Quipo yesterday so I decided to cook that for hubby.

I call this dish, Beef and Greens Ala Aimee!!!

How to make it?

Slowly boil the beef strips. You have to add a little seasoning to the water because you will use this later as a broth, my choice is Maggie Magic Sarap and pinch of Ajinomoto MSG. After the beef is cooked, separate the beef from the broth and save for later. Saute the beef strips in butter and olive oil with minced garlic and onions. Add the the broccoli and asparagus and stir fry! Throw in some oyster sauce and then the broth. In a separate bowl mix a few teaspoons of baking powder and cold water, stir it well and then add it to the pot. This will make the sauce thicker and yummier!!

It's super yum on top of a steaming white rice!

Yum!

And by the way, can you see how much vibrant the pictures are? Well hubby got his new toy and I got us new curtains.. LV curtains for our room, got this from my trip to "Divilandia"!

I had fun sleeping and cooking but I feel Sunday is gone too soon.. I want more petiks time with hubby and with the tv too! Haaaaaaaay, see you next week Sunday, I will definitely miss you!

DIY Bride Extraordinaire! (Part II)

It has been three months after the wedding but reminiscing once in a while about that day has been our stress reliever. ^____^ It was a blast! Anyway, the last time I posted about our DIYs for the wedding was 17 days before the big day. Hubby and I wanted it to be a surprise for our guests so I'm posting it just now as an inspiration to those who wants to DIY stuff for their wedding and also to brag about the result of our hard work! Heheheheh!

Treasure chest for our wedding bands and unity coins.

Our Rings

Our Unity Coins w/our wedding cord as background

^_____^

We actually did not made the chest itself but we DIY the ring inserts and modified the inner part of the chest to make it more in theme with the wedding!

Reception Guidelines Standee.

It was not hard making this actually. I just searched for free swirls on the Internet, used PowerPoint for the lay outing and write stuff we really want our guest to do during the reception! Its up to you if you want it to be formal or in our case funny! Our guest loves this!

Sweets for treats!

Yummy golden chocolate balls and wafers!

Chocolate wafers and Italian candies!

Our wedding is actually a chocolate themed wedding, and to keep our guest happy during the program and while waiting for the dinner we wanted them to munch on treats! A chocolate candy corner for the reception is actually more of a want rather than a need, that's why hubby and I decided to just buy chocolate wafers from the supermarket and visit a popular chocolate store. Our DIY for this was the glasses/containers. I particularly remind my coordinator to gather this glasses after the wedding (sayang yung mga baso), but to our surprise the guest took it all with them at home! They thought the glasses was give-aways too. Hubby and I felt good about that, kahit tinangay nila yung mga baso at least ibig sabihin nagustuhan ng guests. ^____^ We also put Italian candies (c/o our Ninang Jenny) with the chocolate treats, hubby and I searched for the perfect packaging for this and so happy we found a cute box in our motif. We also did the repacking of it by ourselves. ^_____^

Our give-aways! 

Our Cadbury give-aways!

 Chocolate theme wedding so we really wanted to send our guest home with one of our favorite chocolate. Thanks to Ate Criz (Vic's older sister) for giving us boxes and boxes of Cadbury chocolates for give-aways. She purchased it in UAE and hand carried it nalang. The new packaging of Cadbury is foil, di na sya paper lang na you can easily remove. Hindi na namin matutupad yung first plan na palitan nalang ng personalized wrapper yung original cover ng cadbury, so what we did was just wrap it with specialty paper (2 colors; gold and metallic brown), attached our DIY monograms, thank you note and then finish it off with satin ribbons! Walaaahhhh!!!

Special give-aways for those who had help us with our wedding!

Flower girls' headbands

My baby sister Aila and pamangkin Arabella rockin' the headbands I made!

I didn't want my flower girls to look like a walking pomander balls on our wedding day. I shy away from the usual "pang flores de mayo" gowns and headpieces.  ^_____^  I had chosen a clean simple gown and made a matching headbands.  I purchases a shinny off white headbands from a stall in divisoria and made flower from the excess silk ribbons we used for the giveaways. I added gold beads at the center of each flowers which is also few excess from our DIY wedding cord then that's it! Pretty diba? They looked so cute! My baby sister and cousins still use the headbands to school!

7-IN-1 Bridesmaid dresses

Our pretty ladies with their DIY 7-in-1 dresses! They did not make the dress of course but our girls DIY the design of their dresses. I just provided them with the broaches, bahala na sila kung what style they want the dresses to look like... I must say, I was surprised how creative they all were.

Escort card - Table assignments 

Vic and I personally made the seat assignments. We didn't ask our coordinator to do this, naisip namin its us who knows the guest personally so its also us who knows best kung sino ang magkakatabi. We also did not use table numbers for seat assignments but our favorite chocolate as table names.. I wanted to DIY the frames but Thoffy (The One Exclusive) said meron na daw silang papahiram. Im glad he lend us the frames but if I had a chance to do it all over again I'll spruce-up the list of names.. Maganda naman pero mas mapapaganda ko pa kasi sya.. Heheheehe.. Thanks to the One Exclusive for lending us the frames... ^_____^

MAP Insert

With the help of google map and AutoCad, I was able to DIY Our Map inserts for the invites. I didn't want to shell out P10 for each inserts so I made one for us... I think its served it purpose naman... ^_____^

Our Map!!!

Our HITCHED Sign!

In movies after the couple exits the church they ride their wedding car and the movie usually ends with a scene showing the sign "just married". For our movie, este wedding pala, our sign says "HITCHED!" Hehehehe.. Wala lang...How to make it? Very easy, black illustration board,  gold paint, paint brush and a steady hand for painting the letters! Double adhesive tape it on the back of the car lang tapos na!!! Astig diba???

And they lived happily ever after.... ^______^

That's it for the PART II of our DIY..

click here for DIY Bride Extraordinaire! (Part I)

Hope it this helps para sa mga DIY Brides! ^______^